Freeformers
Previte and Berne do it their way
by Ed Hazell
Two journeymen in the realm of experimental jazz have recently taken matters
into their own hands. Drummer Bobby Previte and saxophonist Tim Berne have each
started their own record labels. Previte launched Depth of Field, with
Euclid's Nightmare , a duet album with saxophonist John Zorn. Berne
continues building a strong catalog for his Screwgun label with Visitation
Rites, by Paraphrase, a trio featuring bassist Drew Gress and drummer Tom
Rainey.
Unlike big corporations, which look for packaging concepts and aim for the
widest possible audience, artist-owned labels think small and simply issue the
music they like. The corporate big-money approach isn't necessarily all bad --
think of Joe Henderson's recent Verve tribute albums or Cassandra Wilson's
pop-conscious Blue Note releases. But small labels risk less money, and take
bigger artistic chances. Such is the case with these releases from Previte and
Berne.
Previte and John Zorn are no strangers to one another, having played together
in Zorn's early "game" pieces and on Voodoo (Soul Note) a marvelous
tribute to hard-bop pianist Sonny Clarke. On Euclid's Nightmare, they
deliberately confine themselves to improvisations that are, with a few
exceptions, about one-minute long. By sticking to this self-imposed structure,
they risk sounding fragmented and meaningless. But thanks to the empathy and
focus they bring to the performance, the music is neither. On each untitled,
numbered piece, they take a kernel of melody or a rhythm and exhaust its
possibilities as fast as they can. Track 20 recalls the music of Masada, Zorn's
quartet that explores Jewish music by way of Ornette Coleman. On track 10,
Previte lays down the kind of groove that makes his Weather Clear, Track Fast
band dance so furiously, while Zorn sings and sobs on alto. In all of these
vivid, compressed, and tightly focused pieces, the boundary between rhythm and
melody bends and sometimes even disappears. Zorn is explosively percussive (his
improvisations have the physical impact of blows) while Previte is one of the
most musical of drummers -- he can break your heart with a cymbal crash or a
press roll.
To further unify the disc, the duo return to a couple of improvised themes
several times. Tracks 7, 18, and 23 all take off from a sad, simple melody;
tracks 5 and 14 also share a motif. Pacing is critical to the disc's overall
effect. Some tracks bleed into one another so that they don't seem separate at
all. But a long break between tracks 22 and 23 underlines a radical change in
mood from relatively easy-going tempos and melodic improvisations to
energy-drenched shrieking that ushers in the album's conclusion. Improvisers
generally regard recording as simple documentation, but Previte's conscious use
of the recording medium makes this album something special.
Tim Berne's Visitation Rites, recorded live on tour in Berlin last
year, is performance documentation in the classic jazz mold. But that's about
the only thing conventional about the album. With three tracks, each ranging
between 20 and 30 minutes long, the music exists at the other extreme from Zorn
and Previte's. The freedom to go to extremes is probably the main reason to
operate your own label, after all.
Bassist Gress and drummer Rainey, who form two-thirds of pianist Fred Hersch's
marvelous (and much more mainstream) trio, operate on an equal footing with
Berne. The balance between lead and supporting voices in the ensembles shifts
constantly, and the trio's openness to these changes and developments gives the
music its sense of tension and drama. You can't anticipate where they will go
with an idea. "Piano Justice" worms its way from an opening fragmented ensemble
of alto-saxophone squiggles, strummed bass, and clattering drums through a
series of duos and further trio passages of continuously mutating shapes,
changing densities, and shifting velocities. The music operates through
suggestion and dialogue: the group pounce on an idea and work it over, then
leave it behind in pursuit of another. These are performances whose length is
sustained by the musicians' intense involvement in the moment, their ability to
listen closely and react quickly, and their heedless disregard for standard
notions of form.
Berne has also issued two Bloodcount CDs -- Discretion and the
mail-order-only Bloodcount Live in St. Louis -- bringing the number of
releases by the band in the past year to a total of five. No major label in its
right mind would issue that many CDs by a band, unless Keith Jarrett or a
Marsalis were involved. But Berne, like Previte, has the luxury of indulging
both his whims and his deepest artistic concerns.
(To order Paraphrase or other Tim Berne releases, write Screwgun
Records, The Screwgun Building, 104 St. Marks Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
11217.)